


We're Friends, Aren't We?

by whiteduck6



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 5+1 Things, Autistic Castiel (Supernatural), Gen, Hurt/Comfort, autistic angels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-14
Updated: 2018-08-14
Packaged: 2019-06-27 06:03:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15679467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiteduck6/pseuds/whiteduck6
Summary: Five times Cas did something strange and one time he explained it.





	We're Friends, Aren't We?

**Author's Note:**

> This is an Autistic!Cas fic, written by an autistic author. I'm going off my own experience here, with the head canon that heaven is very different from earth, and most -- if not all -- angels are autistic. Also, Cas' wings are visible because I said so lol. In public he hides them under his coat -- most people think he has really bad posture.

1.

The first time it happened, Dean nearly crashed Baby. 

He was driving down a standard highway with Sam in the passenger seat, not really paying attention to the road, just sort of working on autopilot. When the familiar sound of wings flapping came from the backseat, he glanced back, expecting to see Cas, but only saw a mound of black feathers. 

“Jesus tits!” He shouted, swerving into the other lane, frantically pulling back onto the right side. “What the fuck is that?”

Sam was already turned around with his gun pointed at the pile, before a feather shifted from the top, revealing a familiar mass of dark brown bedhead. 

“It’s Cas,” Sam breathed, leaning back against the seat. 

“Well, shit, bud, you could give us a little warning,” Dean snarked, trying very hard to bring his heart rate down to a healthy speed. 

“Cas? You okay?” Sam asked, always the people-pleaser. Cas didn’t respond. He didn’t even move. 

“Maybe we should check on him,” Sam said, “he doesn’t usually show up without a reason to.”

Dean looked back in the rearview. Cas hadn’t moved an inch since he appeared. He hadn’t said anything either, which was very unusual for him. 

“Fine,” Dean groused, trying to quell the worry inside him. As much as he liked to ignore the fact that he had emotions, they still reared their ugly heads sometimes. 

He pulled over and got out, opening the passenger door. He opened it slowly, expecting Cas to be leaning against it, but he stayed stock-still. “Cas?” Dean said, reaching in to touch the feathers. 

The familiar whff of an angel flying echoed under Dean’s fingers just before he made contact, and Cas showed up on the other side of the car. 

Dean sighed, stood up, ran his hand through his hair. “I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s wrong, bud.”  
“Start the car,” Cas growled from under the feathers. It would have sounded threatening if it wasn’t so strained. 

“Are you hurt?” Dean asked. Sam was getting out now, too, looking like he was ready to dial angel 911 any minute. 

“Just . . . start it,” he muttered, a little less venom in his voice. “No music.”  
Dean looked at his brother. Sam shrugged. Angel stuff? He mouthed. 

Dean sighed, rubbed his face, and got back in the car. He turned Baby on and she purred, almost like she was as pleased as Cas to be on the move again. Dean stayed silent until, two hours into the trip, Cas disappeared again, as fast as he had shown up.

 

2.

A few days later, the three of them were fighting a banshee somewhere in Louisiana. She’d taken up residence in some old abandoned house, and damn if the walls weren’t thin in that thing. They could hear the banshee shrieking no matter where she was, but when they were in the same room as her, she was like a sonic boom.

Cas looked like he was having a bad time to say the least. 

He was mostly able to deal with it, apparently, until the banshee emitted one final scream, when Cas matched her pitch and a blue light erupted from him. Dean was blinded for a moment, but when he blinked his vision back, the banshee was gone and Cas was crouched on the floor.

“What the hell?” Sam muttered, brushing his hair back. 

“Cas?” Dean said, moving to the prone angel. “You okay? Was that you?” He reached out to touch Cas’ shoulder and he jerked away.

“Okay, okay,” Dean said, holding his hands up. Maybe Cas was sore from whatever he had done? “What was that?”

“Just a . . . thing I do,” Cas muttered, so quietly Dean barely heard. It sounded like he was forcing the words from between his teeth. His hands were pressed over his ears and his wings were fluttering anxiously around him. 

“Well, are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Cas said, “I’ll be fine.”

“Are you okay to keep going?”

“Yes,” Cas stood up, peeling his hands from his ears, but his wings were still flapping nervously. 

Sam and Dean scoured the house for the banshee, but couldn’t find any trace of her. Cas, it seemed, had completely vaporized her. 

 

3.

That evening, the three of them were in some motel, trying to figure out what to do next. Sam had suggested they go upstate a little to the site of some mysterious disappearances, but Dean wanted to do something a little more interesting. It was finally Cas who made the decision. 

“These disappearances looks like possessions,” he muttered in that monotone of his, sounding almost bored. His twitchy fingers gave him away. “But not normal possessions. I think the demon is . . . compelling these people to do something, making them go somewhere. Once it’s done with them, it . . . disposes of them.”

“Nice,” Dean said, almost clapping him on the shoulder before remembering that Cas wasn’t a huge fan of that. He set his hand back on the table awkwardly. “How’d you figure that out?”

“Demons are fascinating,” Cas said, his voice picking up speed, “the different kinds, what they do, who they feed on, what creates them . . .” His expression suddenly closed off. “But I’m sure you don’t want to hear about it.”

“No, no, tell me,” Dean said, leaning back. He was always up for learning more about demons, no matter how much Sam would tease him for not being a book guy. Dean just didn’t like boring stuff, that was all. 

Cas’ lips twitched up at the corners and his feathers ruffled noisily before he continued. “Anyway,” he said, “these sound like possessions. I love doing those. We should check it out.”

Dean looked at him a little strangely for that — he loved doing possessions? — but ultimately shrugged and said he was down. Cas’ feathers riffled once more, leaving a few downy strays on the cheap carpet, before he flew away, saying he was going to do some more research.

“He’s kind of a weird guy,” Sam said, picking up one of the feathers and examining it. He handed it to Dean. It looked like it had been dipped in oil — a hypnotizing flow of blues, greens, and purples on top of the inky black. 

“Yeah,” Dean muttered, still entranced by the feather. “Useful, though.”

 

4.

By the time the three of them got to Louisiana, it was mid-October and the ground was mush. Unfortunately, the demon possessing the people seemed to think that the mud was a great place to hide bodies. 

“I guess we’re doing this,” Dean muttered at the site of several disappearances, pulling off his leather jacket and rolling up his sleeves. “You gonna give us a hand here, Cas?” Sam was already elbow-deep in the muck.

Cas, on the other hand, looked pale. He didn’t say anything, but his jaw was clenched so tight it looked like he was going to crack a tooth. His wings were stretched above them, keeping them mostly safe from the ever-present rain, but they looked a little shaky. 

“It’s not so bad,” Dean said, getting into the mud himself. It was fucking freezing, but it wasn’t the worst thing he’d ever put his hands in. 

“I . . . don’t like it,” Cas muttered, so low Dean would have missed it if he weren’t listening for it. “Mud.”

“We don’t have much of a choice, here, bud,” Dean said, stepping out of the shelter of Cas’ wing to search a different section. Jesus, that rain isn’t helping!

Cas closed his eyes, furrowing his brow a little. Dean wondered if he was gearing up for an argument before a pale blue glow rippled out from Cas’ feet, spreading out over easily a twenty meter radius. It illuminated two body-shaped objects. “There they are,” Cas said, opening his eyes again. 

“You couldn’t have done that before I got covered in mud?” Dean muttered. Sam stayed politely silent, but Dean could tell by the way that he scraped the mud off his hands with quick, jerky movements that he wasn’t overly pleased with having to dig around in there either. 

Dean grabbed some shovels from Baby’s trunk and the three of them went to work digging up the bodies. Sure enough, they were two of the victims.

“Thanks, Cas,” Dean said, after they were back in Baby, driving back to their crappy motel. “That was really helpful.”

“I don’t like that kind of texture,” he muttered from the backseat, “so . . . I’d rather avoid touching it.”

Dean barked out a laugh. “I don’t think anyone likes that kind of texture, bud,” he said, “but I’m grateful anyway. So thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Cas murmured, not looking Dean in the eye.

 

5.

Dean, Cas, and Sam had just returned from a long day of questioning when the next strange occurrence happened. 

Questioning was boring, but Dean didn’t find it particularly taxing. More answers meant getting closer to catching the monster, after all. 

Cas, however, seemed to be doing slightly worse. His questions had gotten more and more clipped through the day until he finally only spoke when asked a direct question, and he was tugging against the sleeve of his coat in some kind of weird, erratic pattern. 

As soon as they had interviewed the last guy and were in the Impala, Cas let his wings free, curling them around him again like the first time. 

“You okay, bud?” Dean asked. There was no response, so he sighed, turning on the radio and beginning to drive. 

The radio cut out the second Dean’s fingers were off the dial. 

He frowned, glancing back at Cas before writing it off as coincidence. Baby was old. Maybe she needed some maintenance? 

He went to turn the radio on again, only to find it forcefully shut off. The tape player spat out the tape inside, letting it clatter against the leather seat. 

Now Dean was fairly certain it was Cas. He sighed, putting the tape back in its box. 

The drive back to the motel was long as fuck without music. 

Cas didn’t even get out of the car when they parked, he just flew away — presumably into their room. 

“What’s up with him?” Dean muttered, partially to himself.

“It kind of has been a long day,” Sam said, moving to get out of the car. “I mean, I’m tired, too.”

“Friggin’ weird guy,” Dean mumbled as he followed Sam up to their room. 

They opened the door to find the carpet full of thin lightbulb glass, Cas sitting on his bed, shifting back and forth, and a low hum coming from somewhere.

“What the hell?” Sam muttered, keeping the door open. “I’m going to see if I can borrow a vacuum.”  
“No,” Cas said, and Sam stopped in his tracks. After a few seconds of him staying in the same awkward turning-to-leave pose, it became clear Cas was doing something. 

“Let him go,” Dean growled, stalking over to Cas. “I don’t know what’s up with you lately, man, but you can’t be paralyzing people.”

Sam stumbled out of his unnatural pose. Sam took another step before he winced, pressing a hand to his temple.

“Cas, you couldn’t have said that out loud? It’s not . . . comfortable,” Sam forced out through gritted teeth, moving back into the darkness.

“What? What’d he say?”

“He just asked me not to get a vacuum, but . . . God, the telepathy thing always gives me a headache.”  
“You know that,” Dean said, looking a little closer at Cas who was trying to wrap his wings around himself. 

“No. We’re having a conversation about this. You have to tell me what’s happening, Cas, or I can’t—“

Quicker than Dean thought was possible, Cas had grabbed his head and clacked his skull against Dean’s. Dean winced at the pain before his head was flooded with a bright light, and a harsh screeching filled his ears, very similar to Cas’ real voice. 

He suddenly felt like he wanted to peel off his skin as he struggled against Cas’ iron grip, scratching and scraping at his hands. Finally, Cas let him go, and he fell to the carpet, miraculously missing any glass.

“What the hell was that?” Dean said, trying to catch his breath. 

“That’s what it’s like,” Cas said, suddenly rejuvenated. 

 

+1

“What do you mean, that’s what it’s like?” Dean asked. Even Sam looked intrigued, and the guy was normally the biggest baby about headaches.

“. . . For me. You realize your world is nothing like heaven?”

“Well, yeah. I’ve been there—“  
“Not your heaven. Our heaven. Our heaven is . . . the polar opposite of your earth.”

“Well, that’s reassuring,” Dean quipped, but it had no effect on Cas, not even the signature eye-roll or disapproving stare. 

“It’s . . . loud, here, everyone’s making noise, all the time, and it bounces off everything, and everyone’s everywhere, I’m constantly being bumped by one person or another, and you humans expect me to keep still and feed you pretty lies and understand your idiosyncrasies when I’m not from here. I’m not you. I never will be.”

Dean was a little shell-shocked at the confession. “Uh, I don’t really—“  
“It doesn’t matter if you don’t care, if it doesn’t matter to you,” Cas said, standing up and pacing now, his feathers riffling anxiously. “It will always matter to someone. Every second I spend around humans, I risk being caught. I have no desire to — to be treated as some sort of holy deity because I’m an angel. I’m just an angel. I’m similar enough to you to pass as one of you, most of the time. I just . . . need to be careful about it.”

“Well, okay,” Sam piped up, “what can we do?”

“I can deal with this on my own,” Cas muttered, crossing his arms so tight his knuckles turned white where he was gripping his sleeves. “I don’t need your help.”  
“We’re a team, Cas,” Dean said, “we can’t have you not at 100%. Just tell us what we need to do and we’ll make it happen.”

“I just . . . don’t appreciate loud noises. Or certain textures. Or . . . being touched. By anyone.”

“Okay, we can make that work,” Sam said, already looking at Dean like it was non-negotiable. 

“If I’ve had a . . . long day, I’ll require some time to recuperate. Like today. During these times, I can leave, I understand it’s . . . taxing.”

“You’re fine, bud,” Dean said, “so you don’t like loud noises. So you want to calm down a bit after a long day. I think that’s pretty normal, Cas. A lot more normal than you think it is.”

Cas looked back at him with those baleful eyes. “If you say so.” He didn’t sound convinced. 

“Listen,” Sam said, “We’re going to do what it takes to help you. We’re your friends, we’re not just going to leave you high and dry here.”

Cas’ eyes flicked from Sam to Dean. “Thank you,” he said, his voice sounding a little rougher than normal. “Truly. It’s nice to be able to . . . ‘let my hair down.’”

“Anything, bud,” Dean said, “You’re our friend.”

Cas flashed them a rare smile.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I'm always open to constructive criticism.


End file.
